137
137
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Michael Joseph
movies
eye 137
favorite 0
comment 0
My journey from a user of the awesome cookiecutter, to a core member of an awesome += 1 community. I've learned a lot from the modest and multi-talented @audreyr about leading a community, writing clean cross-platform Python code and putting the B in BFDL. My talk aims to introduce cookiecutter to a wider audience (if you're at a PyCon and you create new projects, you need to use it) and to chart my progress from the outside to the inside of an open source project.
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
203
203
Jan 27, 2015
01/15
by
Martin Pretorius
movies
eye 203
favorite 0
comment 0
Having pushed Ruby to the limits of what it can accomplish in terms of number crunching and data analysis, we looked around for another solution in the data analysis and modelling space. We quickly found that with packages and tools like Numpy, Pandas, the iPython Notebook and new packages like Blaze, Python looked to be a good language fit. Porting a large existing codebase and accompanying infrastructure from a Ruby to Python ecosystem simply wasn't an option, so we had to do something clever...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
264
264
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Nickolas Grigoriadis
movies
eye 264
favorite 1
comment 0
We all know writing documentation is an arduous exercise. We all know how useless and frustrating out-of-date or just plain incorrect documentation is. In this talk I'd like to demonstrate how Python can help make writing documentation, keeping it up-to-date and verifying its validity. It can be surprising what happens when other people discover your little-but-well-documented API. Python has several built-in concepts and standard tools to help making this easier, such as docstrings, help(),...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
141
141
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Godfrey Akpojotor
movies
eye 141
favorite 0
comment 0
Computer and computer based activities have pervaded our teaching/learning process as well as research so much so that the 21st century academic activities in science and engineering (S & E) cannot be fully engaged without some level of computation. An important choice of a programming language especially in a developing country is the ease to learn it and its accessibility. Python's unique features and the possibility that any user connected to the internet can download the entire packages...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
200
200
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Laura Richter
movies
eye 200
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comment 0
The ipython environment lends itself to teaching and learning: immediate feedback, flexible visualisation, easy access to docstrings and ability to explore modules. With development of the ipython notebook, this is taken a step further, by providing browser-based access to an ipython environment with the ability to share notebooks with others, embed output products and annotate code. I will present some experience of using ipython as a teaching tool in a tertiary teaching environment in Radio...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
95
95
Jan 26, 2015
01/15
by
Simon Cross
movies
eye 95
favorite 0
comment 0
PyConZA 2014 closing remarks.
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
95
95
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Richard Spiers
movies
eye 95
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comment 0
Twisted is an open source framework for writing network based services. It utilises an asynchronous, event driven model which allows the rapid development of custom network protocols. While Twisted makes implementing network services much easier, it comes with its own set of challenges. One of these challenges involves tracking the context of multiple requests. In a traditional web server the thread ID could be used to track a particular request and modify log entries appropriately. However,...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
191
191
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Various
movies
eye 191
favorite 0
comment 0
Lightning Talks are fun, short, five-minute (or less) talks. Ideally each talk should make a single point, often in a fun, quirky or over-the-top way. Slides are optional but often a good image can help get a point across quickly. Lightning Talks will take place immediately before the keynote at the end of the first day of the conference. 1. Launch to Borderline Zombie in a Year by Mike Jones 2. Why you're dumb if you are doing a Python GUI in anything other than Kivy by Richard Larkin 3. PyPy...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
455
455
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Adam Jorgensen
movies
eye 455
favorite 0
comment 0
Python is great language for developing software that works well in a short time-span. The ability to produce code quickly that is of a reasonable quality is very important in a work environment where productivity is of extreme importance. It would thus seem to be very well suited for usage in a start-up environment. Is this really the case though? Here at Springlab we've been using Python to develop our product, an online platform for locating and booking with medical practitioners, since day...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
446
446
Jan 27, 2015
01/15
by
Johann du Toit
movies
eye 446
favorite 0
comment 0
Millions of people read news monthly, and news tend to happen in bursts. The ideal infrastructure is able to scale up or down as soon as needed and provide a way to let you proactively manage your servers rather than reactively, which in the media game is a deal breaker. It gets even worse when you're running most of the local publication sites, including some big name players. Focusing on the infrastructure we built, using Salt for management; give insight into the news game and provide...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
325
325
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Ridhwana Khan
movies
eye 325
favorite 0
comment 0
Graduating from a 90% male computer science class, to an initially 100% male software development team, finally allowed me to realise that there is a dire lack of women in the computer science field. Entering this industry in a minority invokes initial feelings of the need to constantly prove oneself and one's capabilities – normally this puts one at an immediate disadvantage. However, given the correct circumstances, surrounding environments and attitudes, these adverse feelings can quickly...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
748
748
Jan 27, 2015
01/15
by
Adrianna Pińska
movies
eye 748
favorite 0
comment 0
Regular expressions are a mini-language used for pattern-matching in text. They have been a staple of the computing world for decades: they are implemented in most programming languages, form the core of several utilities, and can be found lurking in the search-and-replace functionality of any sufficiently advanced text editor. Despite their usefulness, regular expressions have developed a reputation for complexity and a steep learning curve. New programmers are often warned to steer clear of...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
132
132
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Iwan Vosloo
movies
eye 132
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comment 0
In this talk, I'd like to convince you that developing a web application today is an unnecessarily cumbersome and error prone task. It is time for web frameworks to evolve and become more like graphical user interface (GUI) frameworks: these provide abstractions called "windows" or "widgets" that let a programmer write an application using terms that describe what is being built, with less (if any) focus on the underlying technologies needed to accomplish drawing these items...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
103
103
Jan 31, 2015
01/15
by
Steve Crawford
movies
eye 103
favorite 0
comment 0
The Southern African Large Telescope is the premier optical astronomical facility in South Africa. Since the start of science operations in September 2011, it has produced a wide range of scientific results from studies of near-Earth asteroids to galaxies at the edge of the Universe. Once observations are obtained at the telescope, they are passed through our science pipeline, which is built on Python. The pipeline rapidly distributes the data, provides science quality reductions, and monitors...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
227
227
Jan 30, 2015
01/15
by
Peter Lubell-Doughtie
movies
eye 227
favorite 0
comment 0
Earlier this year Ona was given three weeks to write the software that will tally votes in the Libyan elections and decide who wins and who loses. This is not something we could get wrong. We combined agile development with best practices in testing and QA to build an open source tally system that was well tested, accurate, and easy to use. We will describe a success story of iterative behavior/test-driven-development under extreme conditions. Did the structure of the data change the day before...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
377
377
Jan 27, 2015
01/15
by
David Mertz
movies
eye 377
favorite 2
comment 0
One of the ways that changes enter the Python language is via their prior discussion on the python-ideas mailing list. Many core contributors read and contribute to this list, some do not, and a large number of other interested Python programmers also participate in the discussion. A recurring element of these fascinating discussions is that ideas which seem compelling at first blush, upon deeper discussion reveal the greater wisdom of doing things just the way Python already does. Not always,...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
243
243
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Tobie Nortje
movies
eye 243
favorite 0
comment 0
The IPython Notebook is a browser-based interactive computational environment in which you can combine code execution, text, mathematics, plots and rich media into a single document. Notebooks are text files that can be shared with colleagues, converted to other formats such as HTML, PDF, etc.
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
282
282
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Jeremy Thurgood
movies
eye 282
favorite 0
comment 0
Automated tests are an important part of any software project, but they're often hard to work with. Good test code should be written with its own set of priorities and is sufficiently different from non-test code that many standard programming practices are unsuitable. I have spent many years writing (and reading) tests of varying quality and have learned quite a lot from the experience. I hope to share some of that experience and help to remove some of the pain usually associated with writing...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
406
406
Jan 30, 2015
01/15
by
Nick Pentreath
movies
eye 406
favorite 1
comment 0
Apache Spark is a fast and general engine for large-scale, distributed data processing. It offers high-level APIs in Java, Scala and Python as well as a rich set of libraries including stream processing, machine learning, and graph analytics. Spark is currently one of the most exciting and fastest-growing Apache open source projects. This talk will give an overview of the Apache Spark project and introduce the basics of PySpark, the Python API for Spark. It will then dive a little deeper into...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
775
775
Jan 30, 2015
01/15
by
Neil Broers
movies
eye 775
favorite 0
comment 0
With the advent of the low cost Raspberry Pi computer, anyone with a soldering iron and some basic Python skills can take everyday objects and transform them into fully networked, smart devices. In this talk, I will show you how I hacked a Raspberry Pi into my home alarm system, turning my network of IP cameras into motion triggered sensors. I will show you how to build basic input and output circuits and introduce you to the RPi.GPIO Python module. We’ll talk about how you can build a...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
552
552
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Stefano Rivera
movies
eye 552
favorite 0
comment 0
This talk is aimed at people who maintain Python libraries and also users of Debian packaged libraries. (Wherever I say Debian in this abstract, it applies to Ubuntu too). The talk should explain a bit about how and why libraries are packaged in Debian, and how to help maintain (or contribute) packages you care about. We'll cover a bit of history of the Python stacks in Debian and how packaged modules are provided, and who does the work. For context, we'll take a quick detour into Debian...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
259
259
Jan 30, 2015
01/15
by
Allison Randal
movies
eye 259
favorite 0
comment 0
Any decent textbook on astrophysics starts with a historical prologue running something like this: "Once upon a time, we believed the earth was flat. We were wrong. Once upon a time, we believed the sun rotated around the earth. We were wrong." It's a shame that computer science textbooks don't start the same way: "Once upon a time, we believed that all computer languages would be statically compiled. We were wrong. Once upon a time, we believed that execution would always be...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
293
293
Jan 29, 2015
01/15
by
Vinod Kurup
movies
eye 293
favorite 0
comment 0
Using RapidSMS to power democracy in Libya. As web developers, we often think of the web as being a ubiquitous resource, available to everyone. The truth is that there are still large groups of people who have either limited or no web access. In addition, there are people who have excellent web access, yet still prefer to use simpler tools to connect to others. How can we reach these groups of people? While not perfectly ubiquitous, SMS technology is much more widespread, especially in areas...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
468
468
Jan 28, 2015
01/15
by
Albert Nel
movies
eye 468
favorite 1
comment 0
Python is such a beautiful language, and is used as a scripting language in many open source graphical applications. By using the power of Python within Blender, we can easily automate so many things, and make long tedious tasks seem like child's play. In this talk I wanted to share a few real world examples where I used Python to do something that would otherwise be impossible (Or just take too long!) At first, we will take a quick look at the API, and how to get started. Here we will look at...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
222
222
Jan 30, 2015
01/15
by
Carel van Gend; Briehan Lombaard
movies
eye 222
favorite 0
comment 0
Astronomy in South Africa has a long and illustrious history. In addition to the premier, 10-m Southern Africa Large Telescope (SALT) , there are a number of small- and medium-sized telescopes hosted at the South African Astronomical Observatory that still produce a great deal of valuable data. We'd like to show how we're using new instruments and the nimbleness of Python to bring seventy-year-old telescopes into the 21st century. Our long-term goal is to have the telescopes and associated...
Topics: pyconza, pyconza2014, python
